


Lost

by HalfshellVenus



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-11
Updated: 2014-01-11
Packaged: 2018-01-08 08:14:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1130349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalfshellVenus/pseuds/HalfshellVenus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Pre-Series): Sam's at college, and Dean's living one day at a time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost

x-x-x-x-x

The ghost has been disbanded, and Dean and John Winchester are sitting at the window booth of the “Lost Pines Diner.” John is reading a newspaper article on a supposed spirit possession, and Dean is stirring his green beans with a fork as a lonesome cowboy sings his lament on the old jukebox.

It is too quiet at their table. Dean always feels like he’s by himself these days, even when his Dad is sitting right next to him, and everything that made him feel important, feel like he was _real_ , is missing. There was fighting when Sam was still around, and he and their Dad would knock heads multiple times a day, but at least there was still some life in their family then.

Now, they’re just drifting. They move from town to town, evil vanquished here, uneasy spirits settled there, and sometimes people are even grateful. But none of it seems like it’s really happening, none of it really _matters_ anymore.

Dean could be in bed right now, dreaming all of this, and it could hardly feel more vague and shallow if he were. But he has the feeling that he’s awake, and that this is his life now, this empty wandering that just makes him ache inside.

He wonders if he left his soul behind on one of their assignments these last few years, if he misplaced it in some half-hidden small town where no-one will ever find it again.

But then he thinks that his soul isn’t really lost after all. Instead, it’s far away, studying in a dorm, and has forgotten its way back. Because it never really belonged to him anyway. And he never had the power to stop it from leaving.

God, he misses it. Misses being himself. Misses having a reason to go from one day to the next.

He looks over at his Dad, miles away inside his own head, and feels the stillness riding the table the same way it fills motel rooms, the car… his heart.

Outside, the rain slants against the window, runs streaming down like the tears Dean refuses to shed. Far from home, Sam is living-- even happy-- in a world they've never been part of. Dean tries to want that for him, to let Sam be who and what he thinks he needs to be. But here, in this godforsaken existence they pursue, Dean is struggling to keep himself from dying.

If he could tell Sam, if it would matter, Dean would do anything to bring him back. But he’s afraid to say it-- to _feel_ it-- in case it doesn’t make any difference.

If he is something Sam doesn’t need, if Sammy has outgrown him, Dean doesn’t really want to know. Because if this is all there is… if this is all it’s going to be… Dean might have to admit that his life is no longer worth showing up for.

  


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